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The artist's background as a watercolour artist is referenced in “Arcturus #32”. The soothing eggplant background of the composition varies in opacity creating soft depth and juxtaposition between it and the graphic contrasting geometric forms. Lilac is employed with the central circular form, contrasted with the bright blue and green bars of pigment. Perehudoff explores the viewers perception of depth, colour and energy in his signature colour blocking abstract technique inspired by Jack Bush and his American contemporaries. Nasgaard notes how these works exhibit “plays of light and dark, of transparency and opacity, [which] are subtle and sensuous.” Rather than aggressively jarring contrasts in tone and form, Perehudoff instead delivers a more subtle but moving geometric abstraction while calling attention to theoretical exploration of colour and form.

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William Perehudoff(1919 - 2013) RCA

William Perehudoff was born in Langham, Saskatchewan and maintained a connection to this area throughout his life. In 1944, the Saskatoon Art Centre opened, and this provided Perehudoff with early and important access to art. Within a couple of years he was exhibiting regularly in group exhibitions such as the Saskatoon Exhibition and the Art Centre fall show. Throughout this phase of his development as an artist, he farmed in the summer and devoted himself to painting and his art education in the winter. Like many artists of the time, Perehudoff had been influenced by the motivations and methodologies of social realist artists such as Diego Rivera. Perehudoff took instruction from the influential French muralist Jean Charlot, as well as Amédé Ozenfant in New York, the French Purist and associate of Le Corbusier. Kenneth Noland, a very important colour field painter, was also a major influence to his work. Since the 1960s, Perehudoff was a central figure in Canadian abstraction. The effect of the flat plains and open skies that are so dramatically present throughout Saskatchewan seem to be detectable in his work. William Perehudoff received the Saskatchewan Order of Merit in 1994 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Regina in 2003. He was named a Member of the Order of Canada in 1998.

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